JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #34 - July/August 2007 - 37

Raw material takes place before curing, it can affect the compatibility of a UPE/ LPA blend. Industrial practice has shown that the surface quality of moulded parts decreases in the presence of thickening agents. In this study, a maleic anhydride/propylene glycol resin was combined with both an acid-modified (PVAc-A) and a homopolymer PVAc (PVAc-B) with a molecular weight of approximately 90,000 g/mol. consists of approximately 43% organic phase and 57% filler and glass fibre by volume. This has a significant limiting effect on the size achievable by these macro-domains. To identify the phases shown in Figure 1, samples thickened for two days were cured at 140°C on a hot plate that was mounted under a microscope. Upon heating, the macro-domains exhibited small changes in shape but did not re-dissolve. Heating activated the copolymerization between styrene and the UPE resin, which induced a micro-phase separation in the zone surrounding the macro-domains (Figure 2.a). A magnification in the upper corner of this figure shows the structure that developed during micro-phase separation. Upon additional curing, microvoid formation created the black zones around the macro-domains (Figure 2.b). It appears likely that the macrodomains are based on UPE resin with little or no PVAc and that the continuous region surrounding the macro-domains corresponds to a phase enriched in PVAc, still containing UPE resin. No differences could be detected when replacing PVAc-A with PVAc-B (homopolymer). The following terminology will be used to avoid confusion: macro-phase separation refers to phase separation induced by the thickening reaction before curing and micro-phase separation refers to phase separation induced during curing by the cross-linking reaction between UPE chains and styrene. UPE/PVAc-A mixture UPE/PVAc-A mixtures were cured at 100ºC and 140ºC. Figure 3.a shows the reference morphology for a blend containing 14 wt. % of PVAc-A in the absence of MgO. The micro-structure of the samples cured at 100ºC is, as expected, coarser than that of the samples cured at 140ºC. At elevated temperatures, gelation occurs earlier and the time between micro-phase separation and gelation available for the development of the microstructure is shorter. Growth and coarsening of the microgels are suppressed earlier, leading to finer microgels. The addition of MgO did not lead to a severe change in the microstructure, even after prolonged thickening time. Figure 3.b shows an example for a sample thickened during two days. The microgels remained rather independent and are smaller than for the sample without MgO. A lower magnification examination of the fracture surface showed the presence of macro-phase separated domains of UPE resin at the bottom of the samples (Figure 4). This macro-phase separated phase (being mostly or only UPE resin) effectively increases the PVAc concentration in the other phase. Previous work has shown that, with increasing PVAc concentrations, the diameter of the microgels gets smaller. These macro-phase separated domains in the samples cured at 140ºC appeared after a slightly longer thickening time, because the higher curing temperature could have induced some resolubilization of the macro-domains. Fig. 2: Morphology during curing at 140ºC of a blend containing 14 wt. % of PVAc-A, thickened for 2 days: (a) 3 min, (b) 4.5 min, magnification 5x. The effect of thickener addition on phase stability The morphology of a reference sample containing 14 wt. % of PVAc-A (acid modified) in the absence of MgO is featureless and remained this way for at least 5 days at 30°C. The morphology changes of the same blend during thickening at 30ºC in the presence of MgO are shown in Figure 1. Figure 1.a corresponds to the early stage of thickening and reveals some MgO aggregates. The presence of MgO creates instability, which is characterized by the formation of round-shaped domains. These domains coalesce to a size of 500-800 µm around the thickener aggregates (Figure 1.b). A real SMC No34 July-August 2007 / JEC Composites Magazine

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #34 - July/August 2007

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #34 - July/August 2007